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What a job, Cap K.! Getting paid good money to look at all those Skinzenes and not doing nothing for 60 years. Wow!
The folks at ALA are accommodating and prompt. Mz. Beverly Becker sent this reply within an hour of my questioning post...
Dear Milo,
At ALA, we define a challenge as a formal, written complaint,
requesting that library materials be removed from the collection.
Local library policy would determine the exact procedures to be
followed, but most all require the complainant file a form with the
library to start the reconsideration process.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Beverley Becker, Associate Director
ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom
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Well, I was interested in what the Canadian history was in this field, and managed to find a website about Canada's history with book-banning: http://www.efc.ca/pages/chronicle/chronicle.htmlin case anyone is interested what goes on in other countries. EDIT: Hey, CK, here's a bit from that site about NZ: Metro Toronto police bust an independent comic called Omaha, The Cat Dancer, which was being sold in a local comic store and features cartoon characters depicted as humanoid cats, dogs and other animals. They allege it glorifies bestiality. The same comic was examined in New Zealand and given the equivalent of a G rating for its responsible depiction of sexuality.
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veteran
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Canada's history with book-banning
This is (in the end) a moderately inspiring triumph of common sense over catch-all legislation, Bean:
1982
Jean Chretien, as Justice Minister, introduces a child pornography bill that would have made it a crime, punishable by up to ten years in jail, to produce a "visual representation" of any one who "is or appears to be" under 18 engaged in "any sexually explicit conduct." Under opposition ridicule, particularly from Ray Hnatyshyn who got him to admit that a photo of a child eating a popsicle "in a suggestive way" would be an offense, and having been unable to produce a single pornographic scene involving children that couldn't be prosecuted under existing obscenity law, Chretien withdraws the bill.
The case against the new bill is probably worth remembering.
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It's interesting that they seem to have a thing against lesbian bookstores, specifically. Also (maybe it's the way things were phrased on the site) many of the more recent bannings took place during "Freedom to Read Week". I wonder if the people at Canada Customs think that's some kind of a joke. Anyway, there's been a lot of criticism over the "discretion" that individual customs officers have. I don't know if anything will ever change.
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Pooh-Bah
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>Although still depicted as "burning" this book can be purchased anywhere in the West, can't it? Could make a very interesting read in light of the last year-and-a-bit's events.
I just looked it up on amazon.co.uk. I remember the huge fuss, death threats etc against Penguin Books (I think) who were going to publish the paperback. As far as I can see it was never published - to this day, the only paperback available in the UK is the US edition. Less a government ban (as Milo implies it was not banned here) but certainly a challenge to the lives of those who dared to publish it or sell it - demonstrable when the Norweigan publisherwas injured in 1993. I suspect that the publishers took the understandable decision not to join Salman Rushdie in hiding for ten years (at huge government expense).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bean a dit ... EDIT: Hey, CK, here's a bit from that site about NZ: Metro Toronto police bust an independent comic called Omaha, The Cat Dancer, which was being sold in a local comic store and features cartoon characters depicted as humanoid cats, dogs and other animals. They allege it glorifies bestiality. The same comic was examined in New Zealand and given the equivalent of a G rating for its responsible depiction of sexuality.
Waaaaaaal, you know NZers and their sheep ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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At ALA, we define a challenge as a formal, written complaint,
requesting that library materials be removed from the collection.
Local library policy would determine the exact procedures to be
followed, but most all require the complainant file a form with the
library to start the reconsideration process.
Hope this helps.
Beverley Becker, Associate Director
ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom
Yesterday afternoon while at the downtown Birmingham Public Library, on a whim I decided to test Mz. Becker's statement as to how a library reacts to a challenge from a disgruntled citizen about a book in the library's collection. Mind, you picket storming friends of Librarius, I am not belaboring any point, I am merely reporting events as they transpired.
Me: (walking up to the most librarian-looking person of the five busy people working in the open-enclosure of the fiction department on the first floor.) Ah hem! Pardon me Miss, would you supply me a form for challenging a book that I feel is inappropriate for this library to buy and put on display?
Nice Lady: Gee, I don't know Mister, they just bring 'em to us and we put 'em on the shelves. Say, what book did you find offensive?
Me: (smiling) Mam, I didn't find any book offensive, I just wanted a "form" to show my chat-mates on a computer link that I frequent, how challenges to filth are handled in Alabama. After all this is Book Banning Week.
Nice Lady: (A long pause. then nervously) Yes! Yes! We have those forms! I have them here...somewhere. Can you give me just a minute. I've know they're here. I...
Me:( embarrassed by her duress ) Uh, take your time, I'm in no hurry. I'll be near-by looking over some books. I am sure you will find it.
I walk through the "L's and N's of fiction shelves while they (she has enlisted other workers to help) frantically go from desk to desk in search of the Book Banning form. Almost immediately I, with the serendipity born of the good, chance upon a book entitled "GAY EROTICA, GAILY DESCRIBED".
I thought - Boy Hidy, I bet I'd need a handful of forms for this hot number, and yeah, what about all the choice phrases that I could lift from this book to quote on Awad and thereby demonstrate my support of free speech?
But then I thought... Milo, you don't have the balls to check this book out.
So I don't.
Then from the corner of my eye I see the nice librarian. She is jumping up and down and waving her arms madly, a librarian's way of saying "Yoo-hoo!". With an imperceptible click of my heels I assume my best guise as a Gestapo Inspector General and walk in goose-step with a frown and a monocle toward the nice librarian. I slap my riding crop on her table and say, "Dame, fanden sie das papier? "
Me: Mam, did you find the paper?
Nice Lady: Yes! (beaming) Yes I did.
We move over to a high table and she shows me a thick loose leaf book of clear plasitic covered pages. Together we thumb through it but find no form. She is getting anxious, bordering on panic. Then, near the back, we come across a list of instructions on how to deal with a person who is complaining about the content of a library book.
Mercifully we read rule # 1 first, that advises; DON'T PANIC!
We laugh and skip to rule # 14 which said,
IF ALL ELSE FAILS TELL THE COMPLAINANT TO WRITE A DETAILED REPORT OUTLINING HIS OBJECTIONS TO THE ATTENTION OF THE CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR OF THIS LIBRARY.
That was it. There was no form.
Me: Well now we know. Thank you for your help, it is nice to know that there are librarians like you who so graciously serve the public.
Nice Lady:(a slight blush) Thank you, I'm sorry we didn't have the form....Wait! (calling me back) (whispering)...you know there's a lot books that I think we shouldn't carry, some of them written by hate groups, how to make a bomb and such, and you wouldn't believe some of the ones with foul language and perverted sex, why I'd shoot my own dog if I caught him reading such filth. Just yesterday a nasty
book came in and you wouldn't believe some of...
And she went on and on...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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Milum, you are one hell of a good storyteller. I'm just glad I had no potable liquids in my mouth or there would've gone the keyboard! 
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I'm just glad I had no potable liquids in my mouth or there would've gone the keyboard!
So you're saying that you had some non-potable liquids in your mouth?
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Carpal Tunnel
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